I'm Sure all of you are aware of Mesut Ozil retiring from international football after claiming racial discrimination towards himself after meeting with Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May this year.
Özil was a member of the Germany squad that went out of the World Cup finals in Russia at the group stage and faced heavy criticism for his both performances and his meeting with Erdoğan. The gunners midfielder has Turkish ancestry but grew up in Germany and defended his right to meet Erdoğan in a lengthy statement in which he also attacked the German football federation saying “For me, having a picture with President Erdoğan wasn’t about politics or elections, it was about me respecting the highest office of my family’s country,” Özil tweeted.
Mesut made direct reference to Reinhard Grindel, president of the DFB, “People with racially discriminative backgrounds should not be allowed to work in the largest football federation in the world that has players from dual‑heritage families. Attitudes like theirs simply do not reflect the players they supposedly represent. In the eyes of Grindel and his supporters, I am German when we win but I am an immigrant when we lose".
Mesut has also been criticised by the Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness, who told SportBild “Ozil has been playing s**t for years. He won his last tackle before the 2014 World Cup. All he is doing on the field is playing cross passes. Now he hides himself and his crap performance behind this photo."
Uli then went on to say “Whenever we played against Arsenal, we played over him, because we knew he was the weak point.” Özil did not respond to Hoeness’s comments but said he had received abuse online, and claimed he was racially abused by a supporter after the match against Sweden.
The German FA has denied any allegations of racism towards the midfielder, saying he made a “decisive contribution” to the 2014 World Cup triumph in Brazil and praised his “outstanding performance in the jersey of the German national teams”. However, it said the photo of Özil had “raised questions for many people in Germany” and that “it was important to us that he explained it”.
Undoubtedly racism in football has definitely taken a positive decline from the days of Cyril Regis, however when Chelsea fans chanted “We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it.” to a black commuter in Paris and preventing him from getting on a metro carriage in 2015, the four men doing the horrible deed, received a €10,000 fine, and they were also suspended from spectating games in England for a few years.
Last year Patrice Evra was subject to racism, whilst during his warm-up, he did a Cantona style kick on a Marseille team, as fans chanted "go back to your country". This resulted in Evra receiving a ban in Uefa competitions. It is beyond me, why a fan would want to poke a player of the team he supports for a reaction.
That begs the question, what does Ozil do next. Does he try to sue the DFB president determining whether he has any evidence or rightfully moan and never play international football again, we'll see.
However, we as fans of the mighty arsenal stand for Mesut, we need to show him the support he deserves, as racism is not the answer. As fans, we stand as one.
#StandUpForMesut
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